hat there had been a large number of participants, that is to say four plaintiffs, two defendants and one third party, and that the plaintiffs, their representatives and witnesses had all resided in other regions. The District Court had had to rely on the assistance of the competent court of a neighbouring region in order to take evidence from the witnesses residing there.
34. They further pointed to the considerable financial value of the plaintiffs' claims which had meant that the District Court had had to check the veracity of a significant amount of material. The conducting of the two expert examinations had been a further complicating factor.
35. Finally, the Government stated that the parallel progression of a related administrative case, the outcome of which was of significant importance for the resolution of the present civil dispute, had rendered the stay of the civil proceedings unavoidable and that domestic courts at two levels of jurisdiction had been involved in the examination of the case.
36. The Court accepts the Government's argument that the proceedings in question were rather complex as regards the procedural and factual aspects. However, taken on its own, the complexity of the civil dispute cannot justify the seven years and seven months taken for its judicial examination (see Kesyan v. Russia, cited above, § 54).
2. The conduct of the applicant and her representatives
37. The Government asserted that though the participants' efforts to ensure the best representation of their interests were understandable, the manner in which the applicant and her representative had exercised their procedural rights had contributed to the prolongation of the proceedings. They referred, in particular, to the requests by the applicant's representative to conduct the two expert examinations and to take the evidence from witnesses residing in another region.
38. They also imputed to the applicant's representatives a repeated failure to appear in court and lack of diligence in keeping up with developments in the proceedings. The former factor had twice resulted in the proceedings being discontinued and the latter had been a cause for their belated resumption (see §§ 11 - 13 and 16 - 18). Together, both factors had caused a delay of approximately two years and six months.
39. As regards the applicant's procedural applications, the Court finds that they were not abusive, frivolous or vexatious but were legitimate and aimed at obtaining additional evidence. It has been the Court's consistent approach that an applicant cannot be criticised for taking full advantage of resources afforded by national law in the defence of his or her interests, even if it results in a certain increase in the length of the proceedings (see, mutatis mutandis, {Yagci} and {Sargin} v. Turkey, 8 June 1995, § 66, Series A No. 319-A and {Surmeli} v. Germany [GC], No. 75529/01, § 131, ECHR 2006-VII). The opposite approach would render the concept of litigation meaningless.
40. The Court cannot accept the Government's further argument that the applicant's representatives continually failed to attend the hearings and then failed to enquire about the progress of the proceedings. It is noted that the national law explicitly provides for an obligation on the part of the domestic courts to inform the parties, in a proper manner, of the dates of scheduled hearings (see § 23 above). In the present case, the District Court twice discontinued the proceedings on the ground that the applicant's representatives had failed to appear in court, although that was, in fact, owing to its own failure to notify them of the hearings (see §§ 12 and 17 above). In such circumstances, the time that elapsed while the applicant and her representatives waited in vain for the court summons and before the discontinued proceedings were resume
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